All You Need Is
by MorticiaYouSpokeFrench
Summary: A break-in to Hogwarts, and a mysterious letter. One shot.


Had anyone in Gryffindor or Ravenclaw towers been awake that night, they might have seen the pale figure emerging from a hollow at the bottom of the Whomping Willow. It was a weeknight, though, and at 3am even the older students and the Professors had gone to bed.

Voldemort walked unobserved up to the castle and into the shelter of its walls. Up seven staircases, down a long hall, stopping and beginning to pace across from a tapestry depicting trolls in tutus. Five minutes later, when he emerged from the door that had appeared in the wall, he was holding in his hand what looked like a tarnished tiara.

On the walk back down the hall, he encountered his first obstacle that night- a cantankerous caretaker. "I can hear your footsteps echoing across the floor you disgusting little-" He stopped short when he saw the Dark Lord. Filch had never seen him before, but he knew exactly who he was immediately. "Y-y-you!" he stammered, stumbling back. His hand shook so much, that the lantern he was holding fell to the floor with a crash.

Voldemort lifted his wand lazily. There was a flash of light, and the caretaker fell to the floor.

Stepping around the prone body, Voldemort continued down the hall until he reached his second destination- the portrait of an extremely fat lady. His wand was out and pointed at her before she could even blink. A second later, her gaze went dull and placid.

"I have given you the correct password." He told her, his high voice unnaturally loud in the empty corridor.

"You've... given me... password," she mumbled back at him, eyes drooping. Her portrait swung aside, allowing passage into the room that lay beyond.

There was no challenge at all in finding the right room. The dark haired boy with the lightning scar was in the bed nearest the door, snoring softly against his pillow.

For one uncontrollable moment, Voldemort's hand twitched convulsively at his side. He did not pull out his wand, though. He merely reached into his pocket, pulled out an envelope, and placed it on the bedside drawer. For a long moment, he simply stared at the sleeping figure, before spinning around and walking back the way he came.

No one disturbed him on the way out of Hogwarts.

Harry was awakened by the sound of the door to his dormitory closing. He looked around, but it seemed that all his roommates were still fast asleep. On his bedside drawer laid a roll of parchment that hadn't been there when he'd gone to sleep.

Puzzled, and slightly more awake than he was moments ago, he lit his wand, sat down on his bed, unrolled the parchment and began to read.

This is what the parchment said:

_Harry,_

_This letter must come as a surprise to you. I will explain why I wrote you this letter, but first I feel there are some things I need to explain so that you can understand how these strange circumstances came about. Please be patient with me as I go over some necessary background._

_My mother was a witch, descended from a very old and proud pureblood line. Her family had been stricken by poverty a few generations before she was born. Despite living in a filthy hovel and squandering their days trying to relive the good old times, her family still considered themselves superior to muggles. So, when my mother, a teenage girl raised in squalor by an uncaring father, fell in love with a handsome muggle boy from the village, it is perhaps not very surprising that she dosed him with a powerful love potion and then eloped. She must have stopped dosing him at some point, since he left her pregnant and alone on the streets, and she died soon after giving birth to me. I was, of course, conceived while he was still under the effects of the love potion._

_I don't know if you take Advanced Potions, but if you do you are aware that there are extremely adverse affects to conceiving a baby with the use of love potion. I believe that it is the reason that I was born without the ability to love. I should clarify that this is not hyperbole. I was born a psychopath, unable to feel empathy or affection for others. _

_My behavior and the choices I made in my life were guided by the fact that I could not love. With no affection for others to give meaning to my existence, I found passion in power. The desire for power was what drove me to purport blood-supremacist theories that I knew were nonsense and to amass a following. The desire for power drove me to fight the Ministry of Magic and kill anyone who stood in my way. The desire for power- to destroy anything that might inhibit me- is what drove me to kill you that October night sixteen years ago._

_The desire for power and lack of ability to love is what guided my actions throughout my life. That changed approximately a year ago when I used your blood to regain my body. As you know, your mother's sacrifice was a very potent form of love magic that I had been helpless against in our previous encounter, and I incorporated that protection into me by using your blood for the ritual._

_Not a lot is known about love magic, though I believe it is studied in the Department of Mysteries. I certainly knew nothing at all about love magic for most of my life, discounting it as weak and foolish nonsense. Therefore, I don't know how it did what it did, but I do know that upon incorporating your mother's protection into myself, it changed something within me. Whatever it was that blocked me from feeling love for all of my life, whatever sinister remnants from the potion my mother had drugged my father with, your blood, carrying the powerful light magic from your mother removed it._

_It was a very startling experience, suddenly opening my eyes and seeing the world in a different light. I had not felt compassion before the night of my resurrection, and I had not felt any guilt, either. Now, I can assure you that I do. A person as good and as brave as you cannot possibly know what it is to be wracked with such a tremendous load of guilt as the one that rests on my shoulders. Over the past year, I've often lain in bed, sleepless, images of the people I've killed flashing before my eyes. _

_My new emotions have no been only a burden to me, though. When I say I was unable to feel love, I do not refer only to love of other people, but to love of life. For all my life I have been motivated by hate and a desire to punish the world for every one of my misfortunes. Now, for the first time, I feel affection for the wonders of the world and the people in it. I feel hope at the thought that I am capable of doing things that are good and meaningful._

_As you know, there is a war going on, and I am the leader of the side that is fueled by hate and malice. For a year, I managed to stall, as I tried to decide what to do about my very precarious position. You must have wondered at my inaction over the past year. As time went on, though, the Death Eaters began to become restless. It did not help that I was now incapable of using the Crucio curse and unable to keep them under control with the threat of torture. _

_Finally, I came up with a temporary stopgap- a plan to retrieve an item from the Department of Mysteries that would keep the Death Eaters occupied, but would not involve battle or murder of innocents. That was the break-in that you must have read about in The Daily Prophet, and which had the added bonus of revealing that I was back and putting an end to the malicious slander against you and Dumbledore._

_While the raid on the Department of Mysteries helped, I am in a very precarious situation. The Death Eaters are getting suspicious, and I can't hold them off indefinitely. I've come up with a plan, though: About a week ago I allowed Severus Snape, who I know is a spy for Dumbledore, to accidentally discover plans of mine to perform a dark ritual that would leave me temporarily weak and vulnerable. The scroll I left for him to find contained plans of mine to summon all the Death Eaters at once to a room that I'd been enchanting to immediately put them all to sleep for the duration of the ritual, as I trusted none of them with freedom when I was in such a vulnerable state. If Severus took this information to Dumbledore, which I trust he did, this time tomorrow morning all the Death Eaters will be conveniently captured without a fight._

_As for the ritual, it isn't quite what my planted notes would have led Severus to believe. I've decided that it is time to reverse those rituals I performed all those years ago to make myself immortal. One of the items I require for this purpose is a diadem I have hidden at Hogwarts. When I go to retrieve it tonight, I'll leave this letter with you._

_This ritual has been known to result in death, and there's no guarantee that I'll survive it. If I don't, my death will be a well-deserved punishment for my past deeds. If I survive, I'll try to spend what is left of my life adding good to the world rather than evil. I don't think it can ever make up for the evil I've done, but it's all I can do in my current circumstances._

_I suppose the reason I feel the need to write this letter is so that if I don't survive, there will be someone out there who will know that there was another Tom Riddle, one who was more than just Voldemort. One who knew love, and who wanted to do the best he could in the impossible situation in which he found himself. Since you're the reason I've changed, it seems right that the person should be you._

_Thank you, Harry, for giving me a new life. It's been a hard one, and will probably be very short, but I treasure every minute of it._

_Sincerely,_

_Tom Riddle_

Harry let the parchment fall from his numb hands, and stared into the distance, trying to digest what he'd just read. A few miles away, in the Shrieking Shack, Tom Riddle disapparated with a crack.

* * *

**Author's note: That's as far as my inspiration took me, and I kind of like the idea of leaving it open ended. I know, though, that some of you will find this unsatisfying, and anyone who wants to continue this story or use this concept is more than welcome.**

**I'd love to hear your thoughts! **

**Thank you for reading :)**


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